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A group of African leaders meeting in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, under the aegis of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa), on Tuesday called for the deployment of more UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to stem the violence that has escalated in the east of the country.
In a communiqué issued at the end of the Comesa heads of state summit, the leaders said such a deployment would contain the violence, which, they said, had caused "untold suffering" in eastern DRC. They did not indicate how many more troops they wanted deployed.
Comesa is a regional economic bloc, whose aim is to promote regional integration through trade and investment.
"The leaders noted with deep concern the recent escalation of the violence and deterioration of peace and security in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, particularly in [the towns of] Bukavu and Walikale [South Kivu Province] that is causing untold suffering and loss of lives of innocent civilians," they said in their statement.
Renewed violence has recently resulted in the capture of Bukavu by dissident DRC army soldiers, sparking violence in other parts of the country and widespread fears that the DRC's fragile peace process is on the verge of collapse.
The Comesa summit called on the international community to "use all possible means to accelerate the disarmament" of the dissident groups in the DRC, particularly the Rwandan Hutu Interahamwe militia and elements of the former Rwandan army.
The leaders also reviewed other peace processes on the continent, highlighting the hurdles they faced. Regarding Burundi, they said they were concerned by the refusal of the last dissident group, the Forces nationales de liberation, to join the peace process.
"We welcome the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1545, which provides the mandate for the deployment of peacekeeping forces in the Republic of Burundi," the leaders said.
They also expressed the need to encourage and give new impetus to the efforts of the UN and the African Union to address the impasse in the Ethiopia-Eritrea peace process through dialogue.
Regarding the refugee situation in the region, the leaders noted that the problem of refugees and internally displaced persons "continues to pose a major challenge to sustainable development in the COMESA region" and that it required a "collective approach".
"The leaders urged member states to set up a mechanism for sharing information for the maintenance of peace, security and stability in the region," they said.
Leaders who attended the meeting were from the Comesa economic bloc, which is made up of 19 countries: Angola, Burundi, Comoros, DRC, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
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